wsm9363's group - Full

Happy New Year all!

What is your motivation?  Why do you want to Tri?

Hugh,

Welcome to the group.

Not owning a bike will not hurt you in most ways, but it will hamper the training you can do for the bike.  Unless you have a friend, neighbor that will let you use one.

June is not too soon, it will give you enough time to do some training.  The soccer running will help in the running department.

If you check through the training plans you will see some basic free plans.  I followed the free plan for the first part of my training last year.  It was the Sprint basic, where you train in each sport 2 times a week.  I didn't start swimming until 2 months prior to my race.  I would have liked to have done better, but I didn't have pool access.

Not sure how old you are, 20's 30's or older.  That can have some impact on training, but not a lot.

Phil,

Welcome to my group.

I can understand about limiting yourself to a few races, or being limited.  And having young children can make working out and balancing family time very tough.

Cutting 30 minutes off your time is a very agressive goal.  I am sure you can do that.  What areas are you looking at shaving time?  All areas or mainly one? 

Weightloss - I am sure that once you start back on the workout plan you will see the weight drop.  Chance are that getting back to 265 would help you mainly in the running.  What is your Body Fat?  That is most likely the area to focus on.  Weight is a pretty hard and arbitrary thing.  BF% of 10-15% is pretty normal once you hit your 30's.

I don't have a lot of answers for the swim part, yet.  I just purchased the TI DVD and Drill cards (Total Immersion- a swim instruction).  I figure my swim times are 2:10-2:20 per 100.

As I have seen others say, no one wins the race in the swimming, but plenty of people lose it there.

There are some pretty good plans here on BT, you might check into them.  I am thinking about doing my first Oly distance this year, so I will be training for that later in the spring/summer.

Phil and Hugh,
You should go a head and start listing you goals in the short term goal and long term goal sections of your log.  Think about what it is you want to do, and what it will take to get there.  Generally I have several short term goals related to my Tri training.

One might be to select a plan from the various plans here on BT, unless you have something you are already working with on your own.  Related to that you might also have a goal of completed at least 75% of your planned workouts (or 100%).  Remember part of what you want to do is set yourself up to achive some/most of your early goals.  That will help encourage you into some of the more challenging goals.

Kristen,
Welcome to my mentor group.

As I indicated to Phil and Hugh, go ahead a post your goals in your short term goals area.  Check through the BT plans and see if you can find one that fits your schedule and free time.

You say you want to do a Tri by Sept, I think you can be ready earlier.  You can be ready by June if you want to get ready that soon.  Now I don't know that you will win your AG, but you can finish a race with a smile on your face by then.

I know because I went from no training to racing between Jan 1 and May 21 last year.  Now I didn't finish as high I would have liked, but I finishing standing and smiling.

I see that you are beginning your training and workouts.  How are you feeling during those workouts?  If it has been a while since you have run, start out easy.  When I started running in January last year it took me quite a while before I was ready to run.  I walked and jogged for a month before I was able to run a mile non-stop.

Also when you stretch, make a point of walking or jogging for 10-15 minutes prior to stretching.  One of the articles I picked up here on BT talked about how you can hurt yourself by trying to stretch cold muscles.

Phil,

When you log into your training blog, click on the window with the flower/gear looking thing on it.  That will allow you to add people to your friends list, as well as add goals in your short/long term goals areas.

If you have any more questions please let me know.

Devon and Jennifer welcome to my mentor group.

You folks fill it up.

Let me encourage you to sit down think about the upcoming weeks.  What is it you want to accomplish in this time?  What goals do you need/want help with?

Add each other to your friends list.  You can do that by going under your window with the flower/gear thing and typing in each name.  Feel free to check my log, and know I will be checking yours.

I will leave inspires for you, and answer the questions that I can answer.  Feel free to inspire each other as well. 

Please remember - I am not a coach, I am a fellow triathlete that is willing to share some of my exerinces and hopefully help you in training for your 2007 year.  I freely admit, I know very little about swimming, a little more about running (Ex-track and XC) and quite a bit more about biking.

Also please remember each of you is at a different point in training, and over all fitness.  Do not be discoraged if you see someone do something that you can not.  And please do not push yourself too hard to where you injure yourself.  Tri-ing is a lot of fun, and when it becomes work you need to be paid for it (As in become a PRO.)  If you are not good enough to go pro, make it a LOT of fun!

Scott

Devon,
From what I have been able to read, working shorter races into your training plans should not be a major problem.  I know that several people use Sprints and Olys as part of the training for longer races.  I would just try to make sure the races don't fall on the recovery weeks, or the final 2 weeks prior to your HIM

Last year my brother (McFuzz) did a HIM.  Now I would not recomend the doing what he did.  He choose the Gold HIM plan, but then didn't follow it 100%.... I really don't know how closely he did follow it.

I would think if you pick on of the plans it should allow you to complete the race.  Time wise I do not have any idea how long it will take to train for a HIM.  I would think it would require more than either a sprint or an OLY, but only because it is so much longer. 

Devon,
That is fine, I will still check up with you over then next few months.  It does make sense to have someone you can talk with in the area.  They should be able to address issues and needs that I can not address because of the nature of this site.